9/11 widow outraged after NYC mayor quotes late husband while city denies survivor benefits
Cathy Hanson says she has spent eight years fighting for benefits after NYPD first responder Mike Hanson died from ALS
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A Highland Mills widow who has spent eight years fighting New York City for 9/11 survivor benefits says she was stunned to hear Mayor Zohran Mamdani invoke her late husband’s name during Wednesday’s dedication of the NYPD’s new 9/11 Memorial Wall — a memorial that does not include his name.
Cathy Hanson says her husband, Mike Hanson, an NYPD Emergency Service Unit officer, spent nine months working at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11 attacks. He later developed ALS and died in 2018.
Hanson says her claim for 9/11 survivor benefits has been denied 13 times because ALS is not recognized as a qualifying 9/11-related condition.
“I’m really upset. We were denied 13 times. This has been an eight-year battle,” Hanson told News 12 by phone Thursday.
Hanson says testing showed her husband had been exposed to the heavy metal antimony, which she says damaged his nervous system as a result of his months working at Ground Zero.
During Wednesday’s memorial dedication at One Police Plaza, Mamdani mentioned Hanson near the end of his remarks.
“In the words of ESU Detective Mike Hanson, who before he passed gave his younger officers a rule to work by: ‘Do what you can for who you can, with whatever it takes,’” Mamdani said.
Hanson says hearing the mayor use her husband’s words while his name remains absent from the memorial initially made her angry.
“People that didn’t know anything and watched that conference would assume that the guys mentioned by Mamdani are up on that wall,” Hanson said. “All they had to do was Google Mike’s name and that he was denied.”
She said the mayor or his staff could also have seen that Hanson’s name was not among those memorialized.
“All they had to do was look up on that wall and know that Mike’s name wasn’t there,” Hanson said.
Hanson says her fight is no longer only about her husband. She believes other 9/11 responders and their families are confronting similar battles as neurological illnesses emerge years after their Ground Zero exposure.
“It’s just extremely frustrating to me and my family. I’m trying to help thousands of others that are coming down with these neurological illnesses,” Hanson said.
She became emotional while describing why she has continued fighting after 13 denials.
“It keeps me going because I promised Mike that I would fight for him and for all others that came after him,” Hanson said through tears. “I have never broken a promise.”
Hanson says she has watched friends of her husband develop Parkinson’s disease, dementia and other neurological illnesses.
“So many of his friends have come down with Parkinson’s and dementia and all of these neurological illnesses, and their families are going through the same thing that I’m going through,” Hanson said through tears. “I know it’s from that day. From his time down there. I just know it.”
Hanson did welcome the Mamdani administration’s recent release of thousands of previously unreleased city records concerning the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, including records involving air quality.
“I’m very happy that they released all these files the other day that showed about the air quality, which we knew all along,” Hanson said.
News 12 has reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment on Hanson’s case and his decision to reference her husband during Wednesday’s ceremony.
Thursday morning, Hanson spoke with News 12 while spending time with her 10-month-old grandson, who could be heard playing in the background. She and Mike now have six grandchildren.
On Friday, the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Hanson says she and her youngest daughter plan to visit Mike’s former NYPD Emergency Service Unit in Manhattan, visit the memorial and have lunch with his former colleagues.
“They are family,” Hanson said. “It just reminds me so much of Mike.”
The family will then return to Orange County for an evening ceremony at the Highland Mills Fire Department, where Hanson says Mike volunteered for 30 years and once ran the department’s annual 9/11 ceremony.
News 12 has extensively followed Hanson’s yearslong fight for survivor benefits.
